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Lyr Req: My Lagan Love (Joseph Campbell)

24 Oct 96 - 10:42 PM (#135)
Subject: My Lagan Love
From: cdarvill@mustang.uwo.ca

Hi;

I'm trying to find the lyrics to this song and have had no luck. I know that the song was covered at some point by Kate Bush and is a very old tune. Anyone knowing the lyrics who might find the time to post them to me could end up on my Christmas card list. Really, I'm in some kind of bind!! Help!

Thanks,

Craig D'Arville

25 Oct 96 - 08:44 PM (#142)
Subject: Lyr Add: MY LAGAN LOVE
From: Ian Fraser

MY LAGAN LOVE

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There grows a lily fair.
The twilight gleam is in her eye;
The night is on her hair.
And, like a lovesick lenanshee*
She hath my heart in thrall;
Nor life I owe, nor liberty,
For love is lord of all.

And often when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep,
I steal into her sheiling lorn,
And thro' the dooring peep.
There on the cricket's singing stone
She spares the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The song of heart's desire.

* gaelic - don't know what it means!

This version is from a CD called 'My Lagan Love'
Helios CDH88023

Sung by Alison Pierce, soprano
accompanied by Susan Drake, harp

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 19-Nov-02.

25 Oct 96 - 09:51 PM (#148)
Subject: RE: My Lagan Love
From: dick greenhaus

Hi- If you want a complete set of words, try searching for Lagan. It's in there.

04 Dec 96 - 12:26 PM (#626)
Subject: RE: My Lagan Love
From: mryan@server1.rtc-athlone.ie

"Leanan si" means fairy child, basically.

Martin Ryan

16 Sep 09 - 12:37 AM (#2724579)
Subject: Ly rAdd: MY LAGAN LOVE (Joseph Campbell)
From: Jim Dixon

There are 2 copies of this song in the DT: LAGAN LOVE and MY LAGAN LOVE, plus the one above in this thread, but none of them quite agrees with the lyrics I have found here:

From Irish Writing: An Anthology of Irish Literature in English 1789-1939 by Stephen Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), page 389:


MY LAGAN LOVE (1904)
Joseph Campbell (1879-1944)

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby,
There blows a lily fair;
The twilight gleam is in her eye,
The night is on her hair.
But like a lovesick leanannsidhe,
She has my heart in thrall.
No life I own nor liberty,
For love is lord of all.

And often when the beetle's horn
Has lulled the eve to sleep;
I steal up to her sheiling lorn
And through the dooring peep;
There by the cricket's singing-stone
She spares the bogwood fire,
And sings in sad sweet undertone,
The song of heart's desire.


[Furthermore, some versions have a third and fourth verse, but there are no such verses in my source. I have boldfaced the words that are different from the one in this thread.]